


Facets

by fivethingsunmixed



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 12:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11058843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivethingsunmixed/pseuds/fivethingsunmixed
Summary: The Threshold is empty of servants or companions, but when Desire closes their eyes, they feel facets of themselves wander throughout the Threshold...





	Facets

Desire lights another cigarette in the Threshold of their domain, and lets their tawny eyes drift close.

Always, always alone in their palace of perfect beauty, in their heart of perfect solitude; but Desire, like Despair, is never really alone.

The smoke, smelling faintly of Turkish rugs/wine/velvet/ _ everything you have ever wanted to own _ ...drifts…

-

In a mouth carved of ruby and alabaster, one of Desire’s facetghosts lingers. It is the Desire for Your First Crush.

They are tiny, and delicate, with bones as gentle as a bird’s age. Here, in the Threshold, they will never age. Looking into their eyes, tawny gold ( _ their eyes were never tawny gold, but when you see them, your memory shifts and suddenly they were always that color and have always been that color _ ), you remember the feel of their skin, the taste of their mouth, the sound of their laugh, the sudden, wrenching pain of their loss.

The Desire for Your First Crush tilts their head, innocent as a child, smiles. Their eyelashes are long, and their nowalwaysneverblack hair caresses their pale skin, like a promise.

-

In an eye of perfect glass, another facetghost waits. It is the Desire for Your First Love.

Did they leave you? Then they are the image of how they were the day they left, but the tear tracks are gone, the anger is eradicated, only calmness and serenity and a smile of love and adoration.

Did you leave them? Then they are as they were when first you met, the image that has lingered in your mind’s eye ever since, merely more perfect; so much more perfect than even the lies that you tell yourself can make.

Have you never left?

Then there is no one here.

There may, however, be the hint of a breeze, and the taste of tears on your cheek.

-

In a hand the size of an opera house, the Desire for Deservedly Lost Love sits.

At first, they look as perfect as ever. They smile, beautiful, all-forgiving, all-desiring, nude.

There is a flicker.

The music is replaced by a hiss, and their beautiful white face is replaced by bruises, and blood.

_ Why did you hit me? _

A hand takes yours - it is Despair, who wrenches her ring down her face and tells you that you desire punishment for how you lost her.

You can’t even summon up the will to call for help as the blood drenches your clothes.

-

In another chamber of the Threshold’s heart is a room similar to Despair’s hall of mirrors - except where Despair’s are portraits of those entering her realm, these are long hallways of endless mirrors that face one another, echoing back recursive images of the self, and it is here that Narcissism dwells, languishes, laughs.

It’s whispered that if you walk far enough into the Hall of Mirrors within the Threshold, the mirrors slowly corrupt and degrade, and you will find that you are no longer in the Threshold; the cold, clingy fog of Despair curls up around you, and chokes the life from you, as she watches, lovingly.

It’s also whispered that if you walk far enough the mirrors distort, alter, change, and suddenly you trip, and find yourself in Delirium’s realm, as the mirrors slowly start to shatter around you, and Delirium watches, puzzled as you scream.

And once (before Earth had life on it) the Hall of Mirrors would have slowly drawn away, and Dreaming would have unfolded before you. But that realm is no longer open to guests of Desire; not without formal invitation.

And as you walk, always, Narcissism will walk behind you, your mirror image, but always, just that tiny bit more perfect, smiling, ever smiling, a hundred million perfect copies recursively following you every step down the hallway.

-

In another, perfect, glass eye, the size of a ballroom, the Seven Deadly Sins are having an orgiastic feast; Lust is surrounded by handsome men and women, carnally pleasing her; Avarice’s form is paper thin and resembles a celebrity who you’re  _ certain _ you loathe but can’t recall the name of; Gluttony eats and eats and never gets full; Envy tears your clothes off and tries to rip your hair out; Wrath drinks blood from the pitcher, and it spills out over his perfectly beautiful figure; Sloth watches, and smiles, and does nothing; and Pride leans against a wall, takes a sip of wine, and sneers.

-

Desire sleeps, and the facetghosts walk: the Desire for Money, the Desire for Sex, the Desire for Freedom, the Desire for Vengeance.

Slowly, as Desire stirs, the facetghosts make their way back to the heart, and fall into Desire’s arms.

Desire’s eyelids flutter, and they smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a few months back after binging the whole Sandman series, miniseries included, and had an inkling of a character study idea. Figures that the character I find most intriguing is the most delightfully hateful of the Endless.


End file.
